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Americans Suck At Naming Female Tech Leaders, Survey Finds

Researchers found Americans can far more easily name male tech leaders than females in the field.
Posted at 4:31 PM, Mar 23, 2018
and last updated 2018-03-23 16:31:59-04

Can you name a famous female leader in tech? A new survey shows only 4 percent of respondents could — and a quarter of them named Siri or Alexa.

That means 96 percent couldn't name any. But about half could identify a famous male tech leader.

The survey's sample size was 1,000 Americans, and researchers say it was representative of the U.S. population.

And while it's not news to say that few women are in tech — let alone in leadership positions — women are taking on higher roles. Here are a few.

Sheryl Sandberg. She's the chief operating officer at Facebook and was No. 4 on Forbes' 2017 list of most powerful women.

Susan Wojcicki: The CEO of YouTube took the No. 7 spot on Forbes' list.

Bozoma Saint John: She's the chief brand officer at Uber.

Anne Aaron: She's the director of video algorithms at Netflix.

Cathy Edwards is the director of engineering at Google.

Surabhi Gupta is the director of engineering at Airbnb.

Marne Levine is the chief operating officer at Instagram.

Lakecia Gunter is the chief of staff at Intel.

Of course, there are plenty of other female tech leaders — past and present — we didn't name.